At twenty-three, a young man is offered one wish by a mysterious being.

He asks to live forever.

At first, immortality is everything he imagined. No fear of death. No limits. No reason to hurry. He can explore the world, master every skill, fall in love, and experience everything life has to offer.

But there's something he never considered.

Everyone else still dies.

As centuries become millennia, he watches the people he loves grow old and disappear. Civilizations rise and collapse. Humanity reaches for the stars. And the man who cannot die begins to discover the terrible difference between living forever and wanting to.

How long can someone endure eternity?

And what happens when there's nothing left to live for?

Memoir of an Immortal Man is an original science-fiction story by Raj Shankar exploring immortality, love, grief, memory, and the extraordinary burden of existing beyond the limits of time.

A haunting journey from one man's bedroom to the farthest reaches of the universe, where the greatest gift imaginable may become the cruelest curse.

Tonight's impossible choice:

If you could live forever, knowing everyone you love eventually must leave you, would you still choose immortality?

🎙️ Impossible Choices features original, thought-provoking short fiction written and narrated by Raj Shankar. Every story leaves you with a question that refuses to let go.

📖 Prefer to read the story? Find the written version on our website: www.threecatspress.com

If you enjoyed this episode, follow Impossible Choices, leave a review, and share it with someone who enjoys philosophical science fiction, speculative fiction, and stories that stay with you long after they end.

© 2026 Raj Shankar. All rights reserved. Memoir of an Immortal Man is an original copyrighted work by Raj Shankar. Unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or adaptation is prohibited.

What if you could truly understand your pet? What if that connection lasted a lifetime?

At twenty-six, Thomas walks into a clinic with an eight-week-old grey kitten.

The procedure is called Concordance. Its purpose is simple: to create a bond between human and animal that allows them to share feelings, thoughts, and something deeper than words.

Thomas names the kitten Otto.

What begins as an experiment in companionship becomes something extraordinary.

Through marriage, children, heartbreak, and the quiet passage of time, Otto is there. Watching. Understanding. Remembering.

But the most extraordinary gifts sometimes carry consequences no one could have predicted.

Familiar is a moving and thought-provoking work of speculative fiction about unconditional love, companionship, mortality, and the difficult questions that arise when two lives become inseparable.

How much would you sacrifice to never be alone?

And can love truly be unconditional when only one of you gets to make the choice?

🎧 Listen to Familiar on Impossible Choices, a podcast featuring original short fiction by Raj Shankar.

📖 Want to read the story? Visit our website: www.threecatspress.com

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with a fellow reader or animal lover.

© 2026 Raj Shankar. All rights reserved. Familiar is an original copyrighted work by Raj Shankar. Unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or adaptation is prohibited.

At 10:47 p.m., Professor Sonny Steele boards a nearly empty New York City subway train. He's fifty-three, exhausted, bitter, and convinced that the best years of his life are behind him.

Then a young woman sits across from him.

She's holding a copy of a book he wrote years ago. She knows his work better than most of his students. And she has questions about time travel that even he struggles to answer.

What begins as an argument about physics becomes something neither of them is prepared for.

Before she leaves, the stranger asks him to make one promise.

Twenty years from today. Exactly.

But what if the future has already happened? And what if the one thing you desperately want to change is the very thing that was always meant to be?

Twenty Years From Today is an original science-fiction short story by Raj Shankar, exploring time travel, regret, family, and the extraordinary power of a single conversation.

Every story ends with an impossible choice. What would you choose?

🎧 Listen now on Impossible Choices, a podcast featuring original short fiction by Raj Shankar.

📖 Want to read the story? Visit our website for the written version: www.threecatspress.com

If you enjoyed this episode, follow Impossible Choices, leave a review, and share it with someone who loves thought-provoking fiction.

© 2026 Raj Shankar. All rights reserved. This story is an original copyrighted work by Raj Shankar. Unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or adaptation is prohibited.